Three eateries here went away,
As I crossed the entire U.S.A.
If I’d bought just one meal,
From Ralwiggie’s, I feel,
They might still be in business today.

In that great spot across from the park,
I found Taylor’s all shuttered and stark.
So I walked down to Cru,
Just to purchase some brew,
So that they will not also go dark.

But I found, on that sad recent drive,
Though the good food in town can’t survive,
If the service is cursed,
And the food is the worst –
All the baaaaad Chinese places still thrive.

While I was away, the boatyard had a potluck so memorable, people were still talking about it 5 weeks later:

Now, Miss Manners would never say, “Eww,”
So Miss Audrey knew just what to do.
With a smile so polite,
She spoke out with no spite,
“Oh, how nice! Ken brought turkey that’s blue.”

Someone tried to give the turkey to the cats, but they wouldn’t touch it. Barry says it’s probably still on the bottom of Core Creek. Eww.

A Newfoundland lady once bet,
That she’d find, somewhere, out on the ‘net,
A recipe page,
For wine, moose, and sage.
She won! It’s on Foodie Gazette.

A little limerick to celebrate the spinoff of The Foodie Gazette, Meps’ new food website, with over 700 recipes and articles. Sage Moose Braised in Wine from the St. John’s, Newfoundland, newspaper, is one of the more intriguing recipes on the site.

A little Thanksgiving limerick to celebrate the annual pardon of two turkeys by the president:

I just heard that two turkeys’ demise
Was avoided, to their great surprise.
The big turkey in power,
In the eleventh hour,
Gave them pardon, along with the pies.

A bikini-clad Kiwi named Nelly
Decided to wrestle in jelly
“It’s Easter, I know,
But I just have to go,
If I win, I might be on the telly!”

For more on semi-nude jelly wrestling, see Candy is dandy, under Adventures.

There once was a small black-eyed pea
Who said, “I just wanna be me.”
So a southern gourmet
Cooked him up New Year’s day
And we ate him with gusto and glee.

---

If you haven’t visited the recipes section of this site lately, there’s a new feature there. It’s Meps’ new food column, The Foodie Gazette.

There once was a cruise ship in Hoonah
Whose passengers hated canned tuna
“If we wanted such fare,
“We’d go over there
“And sail with the folks on that schoona’!”

When I read this out loud to the folks on Indigo, it went over like a lead balloon. What, don’t schooner and tuna rhyme?

The truth is, we only ate tuna on Indigo once. And that time, I disguised it so well that Barry later asked me if my tuna salad actually had tuna in it!

Aboard Complexity in Juneau, Alaska:

The crew here is very well fed
We’re feasting on Barb’s homemade bread
And the bear known as Scuppers
Who joins us for suppers
Says this chow surpasses Club Med

The crew’s fearing crab deprivation
And suffering mounting frustration
Using cat food for bait
Which the crabs seem to hate
Our skipper can’t catch a crustacean

So I came up with a different plan
Some broccoli and rice in a pan
But then Jim came back in
And was sporting a grin
With a Dungeness crab in each hand

Way up here in Seattle we thought
We would cook Dave’s red beans in a pot
All the chickens are glad
And the cows are not mad
Now we hope our friends come eat a lot!

Read all about Dave’s New Orleans Red Beans tradition.